


just because they were animals

by miserybug



Series: assorted mcyt one shots [6]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Study, Dream Smp, Evil Wilbur Soot, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Manberg, Minecraft, Nostalgia, Villain Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Wilbur Soot, bombs and shit, l'manberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miserybug/pseuds/miserybug
Summary: Two boys speak about the future. Two men speak about the past. Water rises in an empty field, a nation teeters on the brink of destruction.Somewhere along the way, everything's gone wrong.(doesn't mean they couldn't have been men.)
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: assorted mcyt one shots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963288
Comments: 23
Kudos: 179
Collections: Dream SMP Connected Storylines





	just because they were animals

Schlatt flops down in the grass, heaving a tired sigh. His horns are still dripping with water, his suit completely ruined from the ocean he’d just nearly drowned in. If he turned he knew he’d see nothing but a wall of water flowing down around him. It was still trapped within the border- that was good. He wrings his tie out and lays back, watching the sunset over the untouched mountains in front of him. 

Wilbur sits down next to him, having just respawned. The British boy rubs his head, like it still hurt from when he had thrown himself out of the border. “Shouldn’t have tried that jump, huh?” 

  
Schlatt laughs. “Scared the shit out of me there. You almost made it too!” He elbows the older boy, who winces a little out of reflex. 

“Almost,” Wilbur agrees with a laugh. He sobers up immediately, like he’s just remembered something. “And… hey. Things got tense in there, but we’re good right? You had me worried when you wouldn’t leave the house.”

Schlatt remembers the wave crashing down on their roof, sky blocked out by the deep water above him and the room around him lit only by a single torch, quickly draining the pocket of air he had left of oxygen. He remembers Wilbur begging him to come up over comms and then the sound of glass shattering as Wilbur desperately broke in in an attempt to drag him back up. 

“Aw, you know I can’t resist your dulcet tones, lover boy,” he jokes, looking over at Wilbur, who simply rolls his eyes and lets out a fake laugh.

“And here I thought you didn’t want to be my pretty princess, Schlatt,” Wilbur teases.

“I was scared.” He says it like the feeling is a curse. “I panicked. I… uh. I mean, not that you would. I’m pretty great and all, but... I didn’t want you to leave me.” He looks at the ground, picking at the damp grass. 

Wilbur’s teasing smile fades, and he puts a hand on Schlatt’s shoulder. God. This was embarrassing. “Schlatt… Whatever happens, it’s you and me against the world, alright? Just us. I wouldn’t leave you.” Schlatt looks over at Wilbur and smiles, laughing softly.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Just us.” He never liked admitting weakness, or stepping away from the joking infighting or fake flirting, but even he was too exhausted to keep the bit up for just the moment. And it was true. All they had left in this world was each other. No SMP Live, no Schlatt and Co. Just Schlatt and Wilbur against whatever these isolated disasters were. 

“Where to next?” He asks after a second of silence, eager to divert the conversation. Wilbur pulls out his communicator and scans his recent messages.   
  
“Hear there’s a place where TNT’s falling from the skies. After that, there’s signs of some underground volcano that might rupture soon. It has the potential to do what this storm just did here, but, uh. Y’know. With lava and shit.” His older friend lists them off rapid fire, and he tilts his head. 

“I think I need a break from the water rising. Much less with shit that’ll burn me.” He remembers his lungs filling with water as he reflexively gasped for air, just milliseconds from the surface. He imagines it burning his insides, the sweat building up under his suit and… “Exploding skies sounds like a vacation right about now.”

Wilbur nods, already typing in the coordinates. “We’ll leave in the morning! For now, let’s just… sit. I say we’ve earned it.”

Wilbur and Schlatt watch the sunset as the ocean roars behind them, and for just a moment Schlatt can pretend everything is alright. Things were different now outside of the SMP, but it wasn’t a bad difference. At least they had each other.

( _ When he inevitably pushes Wilbur into the lava below, he feels hollow. The gods had promised him power, had promised him safety and control and Schlatt, though he cannot ever admit it, is a weak boy. He’s just a boy. He feels so young, in that moment, so unsure and so guilty as he watches his friend stumble and fall, betrayal and anguish flashing across his face. He doesn’t ever want to feel like that again.  _

_ Being close to people, he decides, is a weakness. It’s his weakness. The root of the problem, the sickness that keeps him docile, the cancer spreading within him that makes him hesitate. Empathy, emotion, whatever it is, breaks you from the inside out until you are nothing but a husk who has given everything to everyone around you. Jschlatt doesn’t need anything or anyone. He doesn’t need Wilbur. _

_ He watches his friend burn in the fires he’s set to their bridge, and tries to convince himself the overwhelming sadness he feels is because he hadn’t done it sooner.) _

———

Schlatt walks into the room, tucking his pickaxe back into his inventory. The hill behind what was once the White House feels far more ominous now that he’s inside the tunnel running through it. A dim light comes from the end of the hallway, and he can hear humming coming from the room in front of him. 

He strides in with confidence and takes in his surroundings. There’s a man sitting in the middle of the room, staring at a button. The man pretends he hasn’t heard the thumps of Schlatt’s boots on the floor, continuing to stare at the wall with an unnerving intensity. “I like the place,” he says, lying through his teeth. The writing on the walls is messy and smeared, the room so dimly lit that the words are difficult to make out. It’s eerie. The TNT stacked around them looms ominously. “Want to tell me what you’re doing down here, lover boy?”

The man laughs, his dirty trench coat twirling as he stands and spins to face Schlatt. It takes him a second to connect the man to the face he'd been expecting. Wilbur Soot had seen better days, that’s for sure. The grime on his face is nearly the same color as the bags under his eyes, and the grin he wears is sharp and too wide, only matched by the unfocused brightness of his gaze. Wilbur leans dangerously far forwards over the chair, his body tense with anticipation. “Schlatt!" He crows, letting himself fall back into a standing position with a thud. "I’d say it’s good to see you, but well. I’m not a liar. Or, okay- I am, actually, but that’s fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.” His eyes are focused on Schlatt with a targeted anger even as he laughs maniacally, the mirth never seeming to reach his face. 

“Jesus. You look like shit,” he can’t help but say. Even on their worst days, when hair was singed from lava and the dust of exploded stone covered them from head to toe, Wilbur had always kept his composure. The straight man to whatever Schlatt was fucking up, the good guy who always fell victim to Schlatt’s need to win. 

Schlatt’s not sure he’s winning anymore, and he’s not even sure he’s the one who cares the most about it anymore. That’s bad. Schlatt would do nearly anything for a taste at victory. Wilbur’s driven himself to the brink at the mere thought of losing. 

“I’m just lookin’ around my nation, Wilbur,” he continues onward, watching Wilbur frown at the reminder. “Somewhere that you aren’t allowed to be, may I remind you.”

Wilbur cackles at that, unbothered by the thinly veiled threat. “Oh, right, right. Does that annoy you, Mr. Schlatt? Am I grinding your gears right now?” He spins in a lopsided circle, nearly falling over himself. “I’m here whether you like it or not. What’re you gonna do about it?” 

Schlatt straightens his tie, attempting to choke down his visible discomfort. “What happened?” He asks instead. “What changed, Wilbur?” In all honesty, he’s not sure what he’ll do. He can’t beat Wilbur in a fight, and Wilbur’s got his whole country held hostage at the press of a button. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, and it's tiring. Somehow, Schlatt’s gotten old. He's barely 21, and yet he feels like his bones are creaking and his patience for schemes growing thin. Somehow he’s not the one running the show anymore, not the one making the jokes or prepping the scenery. He’s faded to the side character, the villain, and he’s still so exhausted. 

“What  _ changed _ ?” Wilbur shouts, suddenly furious. “You took my land from me, you stole my rightful seat, you-” Schlatt sighs and shakes his head, raising a hand to get Wilbur to stop talking.

“You know that’s not what I mean, Wilbur.” He puts his hands in his pockets, subtly fumbling for his communicator. “What happened to us?”

Wilbur reels, and for just a moment, he looks human again. The bags under his eyes probably match Schlatt’s, if he’s honest with himself. Good thing he isn’t. 

“Why are we doing this? Where is any of this fighting even going?” He continues, not breaking eye contact with Wilbur. Wilbur’s silent. Schlatt takes the moment to really look at his opponent. 

The broken man that stands in front of him isn’t the eager boy he’d convinced to buy a fake cryptocurrency. Not for the first time, he wonders if he’s the sole cause of that change. His original yellow sweater is long gone and left in a server closed down, replaced by dull grays and browns and blacks. A flame long snuffed out, Wilbur Soot lives up to his name. He’s desperate in his attempt to reignite, so much so that he’s burnt away the straw man he once built out of what people believed he was. 

His mouth tastes like ash. It’s cold outside today, but the control room feels like it’s filling up with lava. 

“Why did you leave me?” Wilbur asks, unprompted.

“Power,” Schlatt lies, and he knows it sounds hollow even as he says it. “You made me weak. I was right about it too, considering the situation you’re in right now.” Wilbur chuckles in response. Schlatt’s a little sick of the cackling. That’s meant to be his schtick. 

“Liar. But that’s fine! Everyone on this server’s a liar, it doesn’t make you special.” Wilbur paces, fingers pressed together in a point in front of him. “This… scuffle. It’s about power too. I don’t want my country back, it’s not about something stupid like land or sentiment. It’s about making an example. You’d know all about making an example, wouldn’t you?”

Schlatt’s not sure what to say to that. “You’ve lost it.”

“Is that such a bad thing? It’s freeing, really.”

“Are you going to blow up my country?” he asks, begging that George isn’t fucking asleep again in case he needs to cry for help. 

Wilbur pauses, like he’s thinking. “Not right now. I mean. What’s the point in a show without it’s protagonist? And let’s face it, Mr. Schlatt. We haven’t been the protagonists in a good long while, have we?” The worst part is that he’s right. It’s what both of them had been thinking. 

Schlatt sighs in agreement, a weight off his shoulders knowing that Wilbur’s not going to blow up Manberg just yet. “We must’ve really fucked it up somewhere to end up like this.” Wilbur smiles. 

“Ah, well. You fucked it up first, but I get what you mean.” 

“Can you give it a rest? For just a few minutes.” The argument’s exhausting. Most things are, nowadays, but this back and forth where they pretend to ignore the burnt remains of an old friendship is draining him. 

Wilbur scoffs in disgust. “What, does the mighty Jschlatt want to play pretend?” 

Schlatt’s silent. He hopes that’s answer enough. 

He turns to walk outside and motions for Wilbur to follow. Wilbur’s staring. It’s far creepier knowing he was holding a literal bomb just minutes before. For a moment he’s not sure that his old friend will go with it at all, but slowly Wilbur begins to walk towards the doorway he’d carved out days before. 

The sun is setting. Schlatt takes off his suit jacket and sits down on the grass. He pats the ground next to him, and Wilbur sits, confused and hesitant. 

“Where to next?” He asks after a second of silence. He shifts awkwardly under the scrutiny. 

“... Hear there’s a place where TNT’s falling from the skies,” Wilbur says. Schlatt nods, swallowing a lump in his throat. 

He laughs. “Exploding skies sounds like a vacation right about now.” 

“I hate you,” Wilbur says. It’s broken and it’s honest and it’s so, so angry. 

“Feeling’s mutual. We’re too far in to turn back from that.” He keeps his eyes on the sunset. 

“This changes nothing,” Wilbur bites, and he makes fists in the grass, tearing up soil. 

“Good. You’re fucking crazy,” Schlatt responds.

“You did this to me. So are you.” The guy’s got a good point. He nods, and instead of answering elects to watch the sunset. 

The sun falls below the skyline, and the stars twinkle above. It’s a clear and crisp night. Schlatt stands, and Wilbur tenses. 

“Relax. This was too embarrassing for me to ever tell anyone about. Let’s just… forget this ever happened. You were never here, I never saw your little room, you didn’t see me feel things.” 

Wilbur smirks. “A fair trade, surely.”

It’s not, but that’s okay. The looming threat of losing everything he’s worked for is a familiar one, at the very least. He welcomes a challenge. “I meant it, you know.”

Wilbur tilts his head. “That you fucked up?”

“No,” he laughs at that. “That I hate you.” He’s still not lying. The honesty’s growing uncomfortable. Wilbur Soot is the representation of every mistake, every wrongdoing, every sacrifice he’s ever made. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop hating him. 

“Ah. That’s fine. I hate you too, you know. Don’t know if you can tell by the, uh. Everything going on here.” Wilbur takes it in stride, like it’s expected. He guesses that it should be by this point.

“Well then,” He says, clapping his hands together loudly to break the tension. “Get the fuck off my land. I’d hate to call reinforcements.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes, still far too bright and unfocused, and turns to walk away without much fuss. Schlatt watches him go, surprised at the lack of contest, and wonders when he'd stopped being able to predict Wilbur's every movement like they were an extension of his own. 

( _ “Do you think they’ll end up like us, Wilbur?” He knows Wilbur knows who he means. The scammer and his loyal friend, the business man and the criminal.  _

_ “Tommy’s too stuck in his fuckin’ morals to hurt Tubbo, no matter how much of a weak link the kid can be. Fucking pathetic, really.” The man sneers, spitting his words out like they’re poison. It’s dramatic- overly so.  _

_ “Say what you really mean, lover boy.” One final truth before the conversation’s over, before they both pretend to forget and move on.  _

_ Wilbur sighs. For a moment, every sharp angle of anger in him melts away into resigned sadness. “I hope not. They’re better than we ever were.” _

  
_ “Yeah,” Schlatt says. “Me too.”) _

**Author's Note:**

> title from bremen by pigpen theatre co. !!
> 
> schools been kickin my ass recently, sorry for the lack of uploads/updates! they're coming, just less sure as of when rn :(
> 
> edit: there’s a very similar work to this floating around that hasn’t credited me. this is the original, i have proof to show that in case the author wants to contest that. if youre that author, please either credit me or delete the work. thanks.


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